Roadtrip-Pacific Northwest

**The F-H.C.A.G.** · 30th July 09, 06:29 PM

Originally Posted by Streetcar

...snip... my terrible thirst (brought on by the unseasonable heat, don't you know) ...snip...

Originally Posted by Alan H

You hit the hottest week on record, right? Sheesh...103 in Seattle?

Originally Posted by Monkey@Arms

...snip... Just heard about that Seattle weather. Shocking! Its been down right chilly here where I live. ...snip...

Every time I visit up north, it's the hottest day on record. Yesterday, in White Rock, was the hottest day ever recorded! Jake, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! Here we come up to the cool Northwest and all the cool Northwest weather goes down to the Bay Area. Ugh!

We're in Victoria, and the weather is just fine, by San Jose standards, but for here, it's unbelievably hot.

Unfortunately, because it's rarely this hot up here, there is very little in the way of air conditioning! Luckily, museums are the exception to this rule, and since we had a nice long tour of the museum this afternoon, I'm feelig slightly less overheated. The tea room at the Empress Hotel was not air conditioned, by the way!

We'll be heading out for a nice BBQ and pool party at Macman's shortly, but I thought I'd try to post a bit before then.

So, hang on a moment and I'll find some pictures...

Be well,

Star

P.S. Streetcar, we had a wonderful time, thanks for posting the pictures!

**The F-H.C.A.G.** · 30th July 09, 06:43 PM

So, I'm going to break sequence a bit, so I can collect my thoughts and remember where we've been.

On the way to Seattle, we came up I-5 and stopped at this State Park (mostly because I thought the name was fun).

We checked out the beach and then walked through a lovely marsh area (which would have been more enjoyable, had it not been about 90 degrees and humid). Sadly, although we heard many birds, and glimpsed a few, we got no positive identification of any new birds.

Here's the beach:

Jamie went out to the end of the pier, but no new birds to be seen (maybe becasue of all the people splashing about, hmmm...)

So, we took to the woods, and still found nothing, but a beautiful family of peacocks!

Then we reached Seattle, to stay at my uncle and aunt's place up on Queen Anne Hill (they were not there, so we had a lovely house all to ourselves-unfortunately, not air conditioned).

Immediately on arrival, we found a pair of Northern Flickers! Lovely and boldly patterned birds! Of course we saw them for about 2 minutes, they promptly flew off, and we saw nothing new for the rest of our stay in Seattle (birdwise that is).

Pictures of Seattle and Utilikilts to follow...

Be well,

Star

**The F-H.C.A.G.** · 30th July 09, 07:01 PM

Tuesday morning we drove down the hill, parked our car right next to the Space Needle and walked past this bizarre and wonderful place in order to pay a whole lot of money to go up to the observation deck of the Space Needle.

At the Space Needle, we paid our fee, went up the elevator (really fun!), and tried to capture the views from the observation deck. I'm sorry to say, we failed to capture the wonder of Seattle with our little camera. You'll just have to go there yourselves!

We descended from the Needle (even more fun!) and went where we wanted to go all along...The Science Fiction Museum!

Past that point, no photos were allowed, sorry!

We decided we (in other words, Jamie) wanted to see the utilikilts outlet. With typical overreaching ambition, we decided to walk there (for anyone familiar with Seattle, it's not an unreasonable walk from the Space Needle to the Utilikilts store, but remember, it was HOT!).

We went through Pike's Market

Jamie wanted pictures of fish being flung about, but no one was buying at that point, so we settled for these lobster tails.

We stopped for lunch, then finally made it to Utilikilts.

Here's our favorite bit!

We also have some pictures from the WACKO kilt night at Hale's Ales, but I may not get around to that or to Canada tonight-gotta go get some food before I pass out!

Be well,

Star